Being the world’s most popular CMS makes WordPress a natural target for attempted attacks by malicious users.

In April 2013, WordPress installations around the world were subjected to global-scale brute-force attacks.

These attacks were caused by infected computer networks programmed to attack other vulnerable sites (botnets).

How To Protect Your WordPress Site From A Brute-Force Attack

Brute-Force Attacks

A brute-force attack is a technique used to break an encryption or authentication system by trying all possibilities.

(Source: Chinese University Of Hong Kong)

There are many methods hackers use to try and break into WordPress sites. One of these is by trying to guess the site’s administration login username and password. This is achieved using scripts and tools that can guess hundreds of possible login combinations in minutes.

If you’re using easy-to-guess login details, your website can be easily hacked by the software’s persistent attempts to guess your site’s login details.

This is called a “brute force” attack.

Botnets

A botnet is a number of Internet-connected computers communicating with other similar machines in an effort to complete repetitive tasks and objectives. This can be as mundane as keeping control of an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel, or it could be used to send spam email or participate in distributed denial-of-service attacks. The word botnet is a combination of the words robot and network.

(Source: Wikipedia.org)

”Botnets” are networks of private computers that have been infected with malicious software, which can then be controlled remotely as a group, often without the unsuspecting computer owners’ knowledge.

Botnets are regularly used to send mass spam emails.

Below is a screenshot taken from an internet security monitoring site showing the locations of the command centers of ZeuS – a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the globe since 2009 …

(ZeuS is a botnet that has been actively infecting computer networks all around the world since 2009. Image: SecureList.com)

The ongoing botnet attacks were well organized and highly distributed. Over 90,000 IP addresses were identified by several webhosting companies in the initial attack, when the web was flooded with millions of attempts to force their way into WordPress users admin areas. The worldwide attack continued after this, with over 30,000 WordPress sites and blogs being hacked per day.

News of this brute force botnet attack was reported by all the major webhosting companies, as well as the leading technology media publications, such as Forbes, TechNews Daily, Tech Crunch, PC Magazine, BBC News, and even on the official US Department of Homeland Security website …

(WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system making it a frequent target for hacking attacks)

Does This Mean WordPress Is Not Secure And We Should Stop Using It?

No. In fact, there are many very good reasons why you should continue using WordPress if you are concerned at all about the security of your web presence.

To learn why WordPress is a secure platform for websites, see this article: Why WordPress Is A Secure Platform For Websites –

It’s important to understand that, in the case of April 2013 large-scale brute force attack described above, no specific WordPress vulnerability was being exploited (the same script was also targeting sites built using other CMS platforms like Joomla).

Mike Little, the co-founder of WordPress with Matt Mullenweg, said this about the brute force attacks:

It is a “simple” script that attempts to login using the admin login and a generated password. So if your password is too short or based on dictionary words it will be guessed and then the script can login legitimately and do whatever it wants including installing scripts (as plugins) or editing files. The attack tries to guess your password, if it succeeds, the most secure site in the world is wide open because they have your password.

(MikeLittle.org)

Preventing Your WordPress Blog From Being Brute Force Attacked – Ten Security Checks

Every blog with a security vulnerability can present an opportunity to hackers. A compromised website or blog not only presents wannabe hackers opportunities to improve their skills and win “respect” from their peers, but it can also acts as a platform for launching distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, distributing malware and engaging in information theft.

If hackers can access and control your website, your website or blog can then be employed to attack more highly-valued sites.

Additional undesirable impacts of having your site hacked and your site security compromised include getting blacklisted by Google, having spammy links advertising things like casinos, porn, etc. in your content and meta data, redirecting visitors to phishing sites, data exfiltration (stealing information or Personal Identifiable Information from your web applications), and many other nasties.

The truth is that malicious bots are very likely trying to break into your website or blog right now. Whether they will get in successfully will depend on how challenging you can make things for hackers to continue persisting until they can work out how to break in, or decide to look for an easier target.

How Much Information About Your Site Are You Broadcasting To Hackers?

Do you own a WordPress site? If so, visit Hackertarget.com and run your website through their WordPress security check …

(WP Security Check Source: https://hackertarget.com/wordpress-security-scan)

You will see that the test returns a number of results and details about your site …

(WordPress security scan results. Product image source: Hackertarget.com)

It should be obvious after using the above tool that if you can access all of this information about your website, then hackers can too.

(Screenshot image: BlogDefender website)

The ability to see which version of WordPress you are using, which plugins and themes you have installed on your site, and which files have been uploaded to certain directories on your server can be potentially valuable information to hackers, as these can inform them about any security vulnerabilities, especially where site owners haven’t updated their software versions.

If your website is driven by WordPress and you’re not taking appropriate steps to bolster the security of your site, then it’s practically guaranteed that, at some point in time, someone will attempt to hack your website, because these brute force attacks are systematically targeting WordPress installations around the world!

Whenever a website is broken into, site owners can find themselves “locked out” of their own site, or notice that their files have been altered or that everything has been entirely wiped out. Often, most sites will become infected with malicious scripts or viruses without the owner even being aware of it.

To avoid the heartache and frustration of having your web site being hacked into, we have listed below ten simple, yet essential and effective security checks that will help to protect your WordPress site from being brute force attacked.

Note: A few of the measures listed below require some technical skills to modify core WordPress and/or server files. If you lack these technical skills, or don’t want to mess around with code on your site, then ask your web host or a professional WordPress technical provider for assistance.

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Security Measure #1 – Contact Your Host

Get in touch with your host and ask them exactly what measures are in place to help prevent your site from being attacked, and what they do to ensure that your server files and data get regularly backed up.

Check that your host backs up your sites and that, if disaster strikes, you can quickly and easily get your files back.

Security Measure #2 – Perform Full WordPress Backups And Keep Your Website Or Blog Regularly Updated

Never rely only on your hosting company for site backups. Instead, learn how to maintain your WordPress site or get this service done for you and maintain a habit of religiously performing a complete site maintenance routine on a frequent basis (e.g. daily, weekly, fortnightly, etc …)

A proper WordPress maintenance routine ensures that:

• All unnecessary data and files are removed,
• All WP files and data are free of errors, optimized and backed up,
• All WP software, plugins and themes are up-to-date,
• etc …

A full WP maintenance routine looks like this …

(Maintaining your WordPress website or blog backed up and up-to-date is vitally important for WordPress security. Source: WPTrainMe.com)

Again, we cannot stress enough how important it is to maintain your WP website regularly backed up and up-to-date. WordPress site maintenance is not hard or time-consuming, but it must be done to ensure the security of your website. If you do not want to learn how to do WP site maintenance yourself, get someone else to do it but make sure it gets done. Backing up your site is the second most important thing you should do after making sure that you still have a pulse!

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here: Backup, Duplicate And Protect Your WP Web Site With Backup Creator Plugin For WordPress

Security Measure #3 – Make Sure That Your Username Is Not “Admin”

The brute force attack on WordPress sites was mostly an attempt to compromise website admin panels and gain access to the site by exploiting WordPress installations with “admin” as the account name.

For website security reasons, avoid installing sites with the username “admin”. This is the first area hackers will test. If your blog’s username is “admin”, then change this immediately.

We have created a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to change your login username here: How To Change Your WP Admin Username

Security Measure #4 – Choose A Strong Password

A “brute force” attack occurs when malicious software continually hits a username and password field with different character strings trying to guess the right combination that will give them entry to your website.

Unless you put some measure in place to prevent the brute force attack from happening (see further below for a couple of simple and effective suggestions for doing this), the “bot” will just persist in attacking your site until it eventually breaks into your admin area.

Passwords that are easy to guess, therefore, are really easy targets for botnets. Make sure that you change your password to a string that contains at least 8 or 9 characters long, with both upper and lowercase letters, and add a few “special” characters (e.g. %, $, &, etc).

You can use a password tool like Roboform to generate unbreakable passwords …

(Roboform is a password management tool you can use to generate different strong passwords)

For a step-by-step tutorial for WordPress admin users on how to change your WordPress admin password, go here: What To Do If You Need To Change WordPress Passwords

Security Measure #5 – Protect Your wp-config.php File

The wp-config.php file contains important information about your WordPress site’s database and is used to define advanced options for WordPress.

(wp-config.php file)

If a hacker breaks into your website, they will look for your wp-config.php file, because this file contains important information about your site’s database, security keys, etc. Getting access to this information would allow someone to change anything in your database, create a user account, upload files and take control of your site.

In order to protect your WordPress site from attacks and even being used as part of a bot net, therefore, prevent people getting to your wp-config.php file. This requires knowing how to edit database information, move files around in your server and changing access permissions.

Security Measure #6 – Rename Or Delete Unnecessary WordPress Installation Files

Delete or rename your install.php, upgrade.php and readme.html files.

These files are not required after installation. If you don’t want to remove these files, then just rename them.

Security Measure #7 – Update Your WordPress Site, Plugins And Themes To Their Latest Version

Hackers are always on the lookout for vulnerabilities they can exploit in earlier WordPress versions, including outdated versions of WordPress plugins and themes.

Ensure that all of your files, themes, plugins, etc. are always up to date.

Security Measure #8 – Disable Your WordPress Theme Editor

WordPress installations come with a built-in editor feature that allows administrators to edit plugin and theme files from the dashboard area.

In WordPress, you can access the WordPress Theme Editor by selecting Appearance > Editor in the admin menu …

(The WordPress theme editor is accessible using the WordPress dashboard menu)

This means that anyone logging into your blog can view and modify all of your WP theme templates, and cause havoc on your site.

To prevent people from accessing the WordPress Theme editor, you will need to disable it. This can be done by adding code to your wp-config.php file.

Security Measure #9 – Protect Your WordPress Uploads Folder

The “uploads” folder stores all the media that gets uploaded to your website.

Normally, this folder is visible to online users. All a person needs to do to see the contents in your “uploads” folder is navigate to your directory using their web browser …

(WordPress has an uploads folder where media content is stored)

If any files stored in his folder have vulnerabilities that can be exploited by malicious users, anyone can upload unauthorized file types to your site.

Protecting your directories will prevent online users from accessing your ‘uploads’ folder and other important directories. This can be done using plugins, setting file permissions, uploading a blank index.php file (this is literally a file with nothing in it called “index.php”) to your uploads directory, and so on. Again, it’s best to get professional assistance if you are not sure about what to do.

Security Measure #10 – Use Security Plugins

There are a number of great WordPress security plugins available that specifically address common security issues faced by WordPress site owners, such as preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to vital areas of your site, protecting your website from botnets, preventing injections of code into files, etc.

Many WordPress plugins address some but not all areas of WordPress security. One security plugin that does a comprehensive job of scanning, fixing and preventing potential issues that could lead to hackers accessing your files and causing damage to your site is SecureScanPro.

(SecureScanPro – total security plugin for WordPress)

SecureScanPro is easy to install and easy to use, and does a great job of fixing most of the security areas that WordPress users need to address.

Another security plugin you may want to consider using is BlogDefender.

Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress

(Blog Defender Security Product Suite For WordPress Websites)

This product is a package of WordPress security video tutorials, WordPress plugins and tools, plus a WordPress security PDF/DOC file.

BlogDefender scans you WordPress installation for security holes …

And lets you fix these quickly, easily and inexpensively …

If you don’t want to buy a premium security plugin like SecureScanPro or BlogDefender, then use various free plugins, such as Limit Login Attempts …

WordPress is a secure web platform, but neglecting simple maintenance tasks like making sure that your WordPress installation, plugins and themes are kept updated to their latest versions, tightening file and data protection and taking other necessary precautions can expose your website to attacks by hackers and bots.

No matter what type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your website or blog.

As a final reminder of the importance of keeping your websites protected, below is the advice given by a web security expert to all WordPress users following the mass brute-force attacks by botnets on WordPress in April 2013 …

Owners of websites based on WordPress CMS must improve at least basic security settings and implement best practices such as the use of robust passwords and the accurate management of “admin” accounts.

Pierluigi Paganini, Chief Information Security Officer, Security Affairs

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As you can see, WordPress security is of the utmost importance if you run a WordPress site. Hopefully, this article will help keep your WordPress site protected from brute-force attacks. If you need any further help or assistance with WordPress security, please consult a WordPress security specialist, or search for a professional WordPress technical provider in our WordPress Services Directory.

We also recommend subscribing to WPCompendium.org to receive notifications via email whenever we publish new information on WordPress security and tutorials about WordPress security plugins and solutions.

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